Blogs from Hué, Thua Thien - Huế, North Central Coast, Vietnam, Asia - page 3

Right. I've been incredibly lazy over the last few weeks, the last time I wrote a blog was back in Thailand and since then I've travelled down the Mekong River in to Laos, been to pearly blue waterfalls and caves full of Buddhas in Luang Prabang, travelled from Luang Prabang to Vientiane on the deathly roads through the night traversing the stunning karst mountains, visited a charity in Vientiane which specialises in limb replacement for those injured by UXOs from the secret war, flew from Vientiane to Hanoi in Vietnam, experienced the best booze cruise through Halong Bay- one of the 7 natural wonders of the world, night bussed it to Hue to relax on pearly white beaches and visit another UNESCO world heritage site. So all in all a hell of a lot to cover ... read more

Days 140-141 (Fri 25th – Sat 26thJan) Hue So I arrived in Hue after the night bus getting in around 9am. I knew this would be too early to check in plus it was hammering it down with rain so I got breakfast with 2 Swiss girls before heading off to my hostel. I checked in but my room wasn’t ready which was a pain as I was shattered. When I finally got into my room I had a brief nap for an hour or so. I tend to get none or very little sleep on these overnight ventures. I get what seems like jet lag but from a coach. Most of these trips are far longer than any flight I’ve been on. I tend to need most the following day to recover. I headed out ... read more

Hi again! We are now about to leave beautiful Hue. We have been to the Imperial Palace- beautifully restored and even had a drink in the Queen Mother's pleasure garden! It was really hot and we thought yes- this is hot weather nowbut the next day was grey. You were right Em about those skies!! But great for walking so arranged a day city tour which visited 3 famous emperor tombs. The first very regal and all decorated in red and yellow with poems and paintings on the walls and pillars. Blog fact coming up- it was cleverly built and if you go to google earth ( Minh Mang tomb) you will see it is built in shape of a man!!!Next tomb was on 3 levels with loads of huge statues guarding it all in stone ... read more

Geo: 16.4635, 107.585I was completely relieved to reach Hue on Christmas Eve, I thought I might be celebrating Christmas on my own, somewhere in the mountains along the Ho Chi Minh (HCM) trail, but instead I used all my strength and will power to get here, it was really tough going, but I made it. I get checked into my dorm although there is no one around at the minute so I've no idea who I'm staying with yet, grab a nice hot shower and change into dry clothes which is a welcome relief after the weather getting here. I strip everything off and put in a bag of laundry, but my poor wee bike is abandoned across in the car park where it will be secure, so once I'm all organized, I set out to ... read more

We didn't expect to stay long in Hue (pronounced H-way, hence the title) and didn't really have anything planned while we were there, but as soon as we arrived we liked the feel of the city and knew we would be staying an extra day or two. The sleeper bus from Ninh Binh wasn't too bad, apart from the Vietnamese dance music blasting out loudly which woke us all up - this would have been great in a club but not on a bus at 6am! We had met another couple on the bus, who actually live in Enfield (small world) so along with Hannah & Leigh the 6 of us set off to find some accomodation. For once we had been dropped off near the centre of town and so found a nice hotel for ... read more